The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-03-05
REV. HEBER NEWTON'S "PHILlS-
TINISM."
BY REV. e. LEAvITT.
Oshkosh, Wis.,

volume OF sermons, by Rev. HeDer new
ton, the ultra-liberal rector of All Souls
Episcopal Church, in New York. He
was requested by his bishop to desist
from his destructive work, and like a
true priest, obedient to the admoni-
tions of his ecclesiastical superior, he
complied, and attempted what he could
do on the side of positive truth; and
though the attempt may not be entirely
satisfactory to the more conservative Of
his sect, yet, to the average Christian, it
will be far more satisfactory than his
previous work, even though he may not
be able to justify in all respects his
conclusions.
The "Philistinism" from which the
book takes its name, is an ancient term
applied to modern thing, "That Grass
conceit which opposes itself to culture,
the raw ignorance which defies the ad-
vances of knowledge, the shallow skep-.
ticism which takes on airs of superior
ity before a religion which is at once
rational and reverent !; the manifold
absurdities of an intellectual cockney-
ism, in its attitude toward higher
thought and life.'' The book is really
championing of Christianity, as he
conceives it, against the crude attacks
of Col. Ingersoll, and that spirit and
tone of mind which give him so many
admirers and sympathizers. His dis
courses are, ~ "Philistinism and its
Goliath" (2)" Christianity and its Crit
ics," in which he defends institutional
Christianity, by showing the self-denial
and self f-sacrifice of its teachers, and
the great and benefcent changes which
Christianity has wrought in the worlds
social, political and moral life. (3) He
takes up "The Trinity and Original
Sin,' in which he deals telling blows at
the perverted conceptions of these dog
mas that have extensively prevailed,
but yet holds that they are the imper-
feet expressions of great and real
truths.
"God is one," yet in this one is an ex-
ceeding "manifoldedness;" three is the
mystic number; three, expresses ideally
this manifoldedness in unity. "The
Divine being is one substance in many
personal masks, or as we should say
now, forms. A higher statement of
the Trinity, may be made in time to
come. That time, however, is SO far
before US that we need not puzzle our
selves with any such problem. While
it is easy 20 ridicule the superstitious
notion of the Trinity held by many good
folks in the churches, it is a task too
hard for the most eloquent orator or
most brilliant critic to do away with
the facts which our fathers tried to ex-
press in this dogma, or to shape better
formul@ for this mystery. We remem-
Der hearing the Nestor of Unitarianism,
the learned and judicious DR.. Hedge,
say in meeting of Unitarian ministers
that they had made great mistake in
throwing away this venerable symbol,
(the Nicene creed that it expressed
thought which men needed still, and
they would do well to return to a ra-
tional use of it,"
So of "Original Sin." ''It is easy to
crack jokes over it." but "get at the
core of this quaint archaic dogma, and
what do you find to have been the prob
lem before our fathers 1t was the
fact that men came into being with
propensities and dispositions toward
evil; the fact that germs Of sin lie lat
ent in human nature, awaiting only the
proper midas to grow like weeds, and
to blossom in rank luxuriance. They
saw, if man were let alone under con-
ditions at all favoring evil, he would
grow up bad. To grow up good, the
conditions most favorable to goodness
needed to be found, and then he needed
to be watched and unweariedly trained
and disciplined. All special sin seemed
to grow out of subsoil of constitu-
tional sinfulness. There was an Or
ganic taint in the blood" The facts
still confront US. Listen to Herbert
Spencer Education, p. l64,) 1--WE are
not among those who believe in Lord
Palmerston's dogma, that 'all children
are born good.' On the contrary, the
opposite dogma, untenable as it is,
seems to us less wide of the truth.
The kernel of this dogma is the scien-
tific doctrine of heredity. Taint seed,
and the trees fruitage is tainted. Place
leprous pair on an island, and you
need not go back to that island gener-
alton after, to learn if its population are
healthy"
We are forced 70 admit that the dogma
as shaped by our ancestors seems to us
harsh, unjust, untrue, and utterly re-
pulsive, an outrage upon human nat
ure, and a libel upon God. "But re-
member, pray, that the law" (of which
this dogma is the imperfect expression),
stakes on another aspect in the light of
mans real history, and grows benignly
benefcent. The redemption of this
law from its dreadful aspect, lies in the
fact that it is working good as well as
evil. Man has been gradually work